Various types of electronic article surveillance (EAS) systems are known having the common feature of employing a marker or tag which is affixed to an article to be protected against theft from a controlled area, such as merchandise in a store. When a legitimate purchase of the article is made, the marker can either be removed from the article, or converted from an activated state to a deactivated state. Such systems employ a detection arrangement, commonly placed at all exits of a store, and if an activated marker passes through the detection system, it is detected by the detection system and an alarm is triggered.
Such electronic detection arrangements, as used in the present invention, are well known in the art and are more clearly discussed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/410,486, titled “Article Surveillance Tag Having a Metal Clip,” filed on Apr. 8, 2003, which is incorporated herein by reference. A discussion of the inventions in the field, known to the inventor, and their differences from the present invention is provided below.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,911,534 and 3,974,581 to Henry J. Martens et al. disclose a security tag having the pin contained on a first strip that is hingedly attached to a second strip that has the locking component thereon. The pin of the first strip penetrates the article that is to be secured and is received in the locking component of the second strip such that the article is maintained therebetween. The hinged attachment may lead to the bending of the pin when contacting the locking component because of the predetermined arc that it must travel as a result of the hinged arrangement. Some items of merchandise are solid and cannot be pierced with the attachment pin used by some EAS tags. Lanyards have been developed for these products.
The '534 and '581 patents also disclose a pin soldered to a chain at one end and the other end of the chain riveted to the tag cover. A drawback with existing lanyards is that they may be severed to remove the tag holder from the item of merchandise. Once severed, the tag holder is destroyed and must be replaced. Some existing lanyards are difficult to assemble and require both ends of the lanyard to be held in alignment while the sharp tack of the holder is threaded through the ends of the lanyard.
In addition, the prior art, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,069,047 to Lynch, discloses pin clutch mechanisms that function by forcing a plurality of balls around the pin member by a resilient means, which balls are disengaged from said pin by the use of a magnet. However, such pin clutch mechanisms are defeated by sharply striking the tag with a tool, such as a hammer, which release the balls from engagement with the pin. The prior art, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,140,836 to Hogan, discloses a tag that can be attached to articles without piercing the same with a pin. However, such devices may be defeated by simply cutting through the engaging member. Furthermore, because the engaging member is detachable from the tag, it can be misplaced or lost by the user.
The prior art does not address the need for an EAS tag that is difficult to defeat and easy to use. In addition, the prior art fails to provide a theft deterrent tag assembly that can be securely engaged to articles that cannot be penetrated by a pin. Therefore, there remains a long standing and continuing need for an advance in the art of EAS and theft deterrent tags that makes the tags more difficult to defeat, simpler in both design and use, more economical and efficient in their construction and use, and provide a more secure and reliable engagement of the article to be monitored.